Reborn as a Demonic Tree

Ashlock felt the corrosive slime burn his root as he contemplated his options.

The pain was initially numb as the root hairs were instantly vaporized. But as the root's cell walls began to break down and the corrosive fluid poured in through the small gaps and interacted with the soft flesh inside, he felt a pain like no other—a searing pain, like dipping his toe into boiling water.

But this time, he resisted it by shifting his attention away—micromanaging it from afar. One of the many benefits of having a mountain-sized body and a mind that couldn't process everything at once.

Now it felt like a distant dull ache as if he had sat on his foot for too long, making it numb. He could still wiggle his toes and command the root, but he couldn't see exactly what was happening.

"Right, time to cast {Root Puppet} and see if this works..."

***

Diana landed below with blue flames shrouding her legs and dashed toward the exit of the mineshaft while looking over her shoulder. 'I should get ready to evacuate as the slime is impossible for me to defeat with my water Qi.'

Diana's sword sat lazily in her hand.

She tried to ignore the hundreds of beady eyes glaring at her from the safety of their stone homes.

The rodents were of little concern to her as they were mostly in the Qi realm—even the miners could deal with them with the help of artifacts, but a nest and the few stronger ones would require a cultivator to deal with them.

Being in the Soul Fire realm made Diana stronger than many things in this world, especially with her techniques, artifacts, and weapons she acquired from her family before their demise.

However, even with all her advantages, the world was vast, and something new was always trying to kill her, and Diana had experienced that today.

The slime wasn't life-threatening per se, but if she had been trapped in a stone room without an exit with it, her only chance of escaping would be to force her way through the mountain rock and hope her soul core had enough energy to keep her going all the way to the surface.

Diana watched with interest as the slime aggressively tried to absorb the root. What would Ashlock do here? The tree had displayed intelligence far beyond that of a normal one and abilities that even monarch realms couldn't achieve.

Sure, Ashlock may be unable to move or use his Qi for any techniques. Still, he appeared instinctually capable of artificially creating rifts between worlds—which wasn't surprising considering he possessed such flawless spatial Qi.

Diana frowned a little at that thought and summoned her blue flames tarnished with a hint of black, showing that her spiritual roots were inferior. She could still display the same power as another. It's just affected the finesse she could have over her techniques and soul-fire.

For example, even if Ashlock somehow taught Stella how to open rifts between worlds, Diana doubted Stella could even open the rift as that would be a very high-level and complex spatial Qi technique.

Diana focused back on the slime. "Why isn't the patriarch burning it with his flames?" She wondered aloud, her voice echoing slightly through the cavern, earning her even more stares from the rodents.

After Ashlock displayed his inner eye, Diana had no issue replacing the image of the blood lotus sect patriarch with that demon-eyed tree. Hell, even her father didn't have such a terrifying gaze as that gluttonous tree.

Looking closer, Diana saw the black root's tip open up and hair-thin fibers fanned out. The slime began to convulse and shudder as lilac Qi occasionally flashed along the hair-thin roots.

The slime's body appeared to offer little resistance as it was at war with its own body, and the water Qi did nothing to counter the spatial Qi of Ashlock.

Diana watched its blue body being overtaken by the black roots as if a plague of spindly fingers corrupted it. It was a terrifying display and reminded Diana of how Ashlock controlled corpses. Was this the same technique? Would he take over this strange creature?

Its body sagged down, but the roots held it mostly together. The process was a little slow due to the slime's enormous body. Finally, the rodents became restless as they saw the creature they had been so afraid of being eaten alive from the inside.

Sparks of lilac Qi flashed between the black roots throughout the slime's body, slowly turning the whole thing a light shade of purple.

***

The dull pain finally stopped.

Ashlock's Soul Core hummed as Qi poured into the mountain, especially down that single root. Over the last hour, he had broken through the cavern ce

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